Fire Safety Audits in Cheshire: The Data
Fire safety enforcement varies more between areas of the country than most responsible persons realise, so we set out to measure it properly for our own region, beginning with our home county of Cheshire. We analysed two official datasets published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government: FIRE1202, which records the fire safety audits each fire and rescue authority carries out and their outcomes, and FIRE1204, which records the enforcement action taken and the duties cited where premises fall short. Both cover the ten years to the financial year ending March 2025. We isolated Cheshire and its neighbouring services, calculated the share of audits found unsatisfactory, broke the results down by type of premises while pooling three years so the sector figures are stable, measured how much of the building stock is actually inspected, and cross-referenced the independent HMICFRS inspection grade for each service. What follows is what that analysis shows for Cheshire.
Where Cheshire stands
In the year ending March 2025, Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service carried out 2,040 fire safety audits, of which just 8.1 per cent were unsatisfactory. That was the lowest unsatisfactory rate of all 44 fire and rescue authorities in England, placing Cheshire first in the country, and it sits far below the England average of 41.8 per cent, so a premises audited in Cheshire was far more likely to be found in good order than one audited nationally.
Within the North West the spread is wide, and Cheshire sits at the very top of it.
These figures show how many audited premises were found compliant. Services choose which premises to audit and record their outcomes in their own way, so we set them out here to help responsible persons understand what fire safety inspection looks like in their area.
The trend over time
Cheshire’s improvement runs across the whole period for which comparable figures exist, falling from 35.2 per cent unsatisfactory in 2016/17 to 8.1 per cent in the latest year.
Across the same period the England average moved in the opposite direction, climbing to 41.8 per cent, so the gap between Cheshire and the national picture has widened year on year.
Which premises fail most often
The county average covers a wide range of building types, and this is where the data becomes useful to an individual owner. Breaking the audits down by premises type, and pooling the last three years so the sector figures are stable, the likelihood of an unsatisfactory result varied considerably.
The buildings most likely to fail an audit in Cheshire were high-rise flats, other sleeping accommodation and licensed premises, with hotels close behind, while offices, schools and hospitals sat near the bottom. If you run a hotels, an hmos or a licensed venue, your sector’s record is good reason to keep the fire risk assessment current, since these are the premises where inspectors most often find shortcomings.
How likely your building is to be audited
The same breakdown answers a different question that owners often ask, which is how likely their type of building is to be audited at all. Cheshire audited around 3.6 per cent of its known premises during the year, and that limited resource is directed at the higher-risk end of the building stock.
Around one in four known care homes was audited in the year, alongside roughly a fifth of hospitals and hotels, while an office or a factories & warehouses had closer to a one in forty chance of a visit.
If your premises is one of the more heavily audited types, it is worth understanding what to expect from an FRS fire safety audit before one is arranged.
What premises actually fail on in Cheshire
We also examined what premises in Cheshire actually fail on. The official data records the duties most often cited where Cheshire premises fell short, measured against the articles of the Fire Safety Order, and a clear pattern emerges.
The single most common failure in Cheshire, accounting for almost one in five of all recorded shortcomings, concerns the maintenance of fire safety equipment and fire doors. Fire doors are a frequent weak point within this category, whether wedged open, damaged or poorly fitted, and a fire door inspection is the way to confirm they will hold back fire and smoke as they are meant to. Close behind come the general duty to take fire precautions, the protection of emergency routes and exits, and the fire risk assessment itself, which between them make up a further large share.
What often surprises responsible persons is how much of this concerns people instead of hardware. Staff fire safety training is the seventh most common failure in Cheshire in its own right, and alongside it sit failures of emergency procedures and of informing employees about the risks and what to do. Taken together, training, procedures and staff information make up around a sixth of everything recorded as non-compliant in the county. Failures of fire safety arrangements, the planning and management behind it all, appear too, and a clear fire safety policy is how a responsible person sets that right. Inspectors do check whether your staff have been trained, whether they know the evacuation procedure, and whether they understand the risks where they work.
Yes, staff training is checkedFire safety training for staff is a legal duty under article 21 of the Fire Safety Order, and in Cheshire it was among the most common duties premises were found to have neglected. A fire risk assessment identifies the training your staff need, and delivering that training is one of the clearest ways a responsible person turns a written assessment into real protection. It is also one of the three services we provide.
What this means for businesses in Cheshire
An independently well-rated serviceCheshire Fire and Rescue Service is rated good at protecting the public through fire regulation by HMICFRS, the independent inspectorate. Its 2025 inspection graded the service good across nine areas and outstanding in one, with no areas for improvement, describing a service that keeps people safe to a high standard. Audits in Cheshire are carried out by a service the inspectorate holds in high regard.
What do enforcement and prohibition notices mean?If an audit finds a problem, a fire and rescue authority can act formally. An enforcement notice, served under article 30 of the Fire Safety Order, sets out the failings and requires the responsible person to put them right within a stated period. A prohibition notice, under article 31, is more serious, and is used where the risk to life is so great that the use of all or part of a building is restricted or prohibited until the danger is dealt with, sometimes with immediate effect. The most serious breaches can lead to prosecution under article 32.
If you are responsible for a building in Cheshire, we recommend you note the following. The service audits in good numbers and concentrates on higher-risk premises such as care homes, hotels and flats, so the chance of a visit is real if your building is among them. Failing an audit carries real consequences, with 45 enforcement notices, 31 prohibition notices and one prosecution recorded in the latest year. And the failures inspectors record most often fall into three areas, the fire risk assessment itself, the upkeep of fire doors and fire safety equipment, and the training and procedures your staff depend on. Those are precisely the areas we work in, and we provide independent fire risk assessments, fire door inspections and fire safety training across Cheshire, so that your premises is ready if an audit comes.
About this research and the analystsThis analysis was carried out by Fletcher Risk Management, an independent fire safety consultancy based in Chester. Our assessors are qualified to ABBE Level 4 in fire risk assessment and bring significant hands-on experience of inspecting premises across the region, and we have applied that suitably qualified and experienced judgement to interpret the official data and draw conclusions of practical use to responsible persons. The figures are our own analysis of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government fire statistics, tables FIRE1202 and FIRE1204, for the year ending March 2025, with sector figures pooled over three years and very small samples excluded, and inspection grades taken from published HMICFRS reports. Journalists who would like further comment are welcome to contact us through our contact page.
Be ready for your audit
We provide independent fire risk assessments, fire door inspections and fire safety training for businesses across Cheshire and the wider region, covering the very things inspectors check. If you would like to discuss your premises, please get in touch.
Get in touchFire Risk AssessmentsThis article is provided for general guidance and does not constitute professional advice for any specific premises. Figures are Fletcher Risk’s analysis of published MHCLG fire statistics (FIRE1202 and FIRE1204, year ending March 2025) and HMICFRS inspection reports, accurate to the source data at the time of writing. Fletcher Risk Management Limited provides Fire Risk Assessments, Fire Door Inspections and Fire Safety Training across the North West, North Wales and the West Midlands.